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Television and film writers have begun the process of striking against major Hollywood studios: Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Disney, Discovery-Warner, NBC Universal, Paramount and Sony. The Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents the studios, failed to come up with a new three-year contract in advance of the old deal expiring at midnight Monday. Representatives of the WGA voted to call a strike, effective 12:01 a.m. PT on Tuesday.
« The companies’ behavior has created a gig economy inside a union workforce, and their immovable stance in this negotiation has betrayed a commitment to further devaluing the profession of writing, the WGA said in a statement Monday night. « From their refusal to guarantee any level of weekly employment in episodic television, to the creation of a ‘day rate’ in comedy variety, to their stonewalling on free work for screenwriters and on AI for all writers, they have closed the door on their labor force and opened the door to writing as an entirely freelance profession. »
The WGA said picketing would begin Tuesday afternoon.
In a statement sent to NPR shortly before announcement of the strike call, AMPTP said it had presented a package proposal to the guild « which included generous increases in compensation for writers as well as improvements in streaming residuals. » According to that statement, the studio’s alliance told the WGA it was prepared to improve that offer « but was unwilling to do so because of the magnitude of other proposals still on the table that the Guild continues to insist upon. The primary sticking points are ‘mandatory staffing,’ and ‘duration of employment’ — Guild proposals that would require a company to staff a show with a certain number of writers for a specified period of time, whether needed or not. »
Since negotiations began in March, the WGA had been asking for higher wages, healthcare benefits and pensions, and in particular, better compensation when their work shows up on streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime.
« Driven in large part by the shift to streaming, writers are finding their work devalued in every part of the business, » the guild said in a bulletin to its members.
